Callison, Kelly

ORAL HISTORY OF KELLY CALLISON
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
November 18, 2016
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel. Today is November 18, 2016 and I am in my studio here in Oak Ridge with Kelly Callison. Kelly, thank you so much for taking time to come on over and talk with us. MR. CALLISON: Pleasure to be here with you. MR. MCDANIEL: I don't know that we've ever even met before. We may have. MR. CALLISON: We may have passed seeing each other somewhere. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. We've been Facebook friends for a while and I know you're a member of our Oak Ridge City Council. We'll get to that but this is about you. This is your story and your time in Oak Ridge. But even before that, let's start at the beginning. Tell me where you were born and raised. Something about your family. MR. CALLISON: I was born in Van Nuys, California. My family is second generation Californians. We grew up there, went to elementary, high school, all the way through there and never had any plans of leaving the west coast. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yeah. Then I got accepted to Coast Guard Academy and I went away to school in New London, Connecticut in 1967. Went there for four years, graduated and came back to the west coast. My first assignment was on the Coast Guard cutter Rush out of San Francisco. MR. MCDANIEL: What made you decide to join the Coast Guard? MR. CALLISON: The recruiter came to town and gave us a little bit of background about it. I've always been interested in sea, in boating and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you do that when you were growing up in California? MR. CALLISON: Yeah. All my folks and their friends all were water skiers so we all had boats and we spent a lot of time at Lake Tahoe, all the major lakes around the Los Angeles area. Going on vacation and just it was very natural to go from what we were doing and grew up with, to go to the Coast Guard Academy. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. When you were in high school did you kind of know what you wanted to do with your life? MR. CALLISON: Well, my whole family, my entire family we're teachers. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: In fact, my grandmother always used to say to me, "When is it you're going to start teaching?" When I was looking at going to college, I was looking at USC [University of Southern California] or University California Santa Barbara. Some of the schools that were considered to be really good teaching schools. They were quite surprised when I went to the Coast Guard Academy. MR. MCDANIEL: When you went to the Coast Guard Academy, I guess when you go to the Coast Guard Academy, I don't really know, do you learn a trade? MR. CALLISON: It's general education. It's regular college actually. Just college. The only difference is that after you spend four years of school there and graduate, you're obligated to spend five years in the Coast Guard as a minimum. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: It's primarily, at the time was primarily an engineering school. My particular area of expertise was in more my area of study, I should say, was in math and computer science. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Okay, so you went to school and then you spent five years in the Coast Guard? MR. CALLISON: I actually spent 20 years in the Coast Guard. MR. MCDANIEL: 20 years? Oh, wow. MR. CALLISON: Yep. I was on the west coast, then on the east coast, and I ended up, I used to laugh about it. I ended up teaching at the Coast Guard Academy in my last three years in the Coast Guard. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, there you go. MR. CALLISON: Yep. My grandmother got her wish. MR. MCDANIEL: How funny. How funny. Were you married or have a family during all this? MR. CALLISON: I was married. I got married to a woman out of Cleveland, Ohio, and we had two sons and moved around quite a bit. I think I moved 12 times in the time I was in the Coast Guard. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh wow. MR. CALLISON: I really enjoyed it. It was great, great living. I loved the life and I had worked with a lot of great people. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. After 20 years were you able to retire? Was that the situation? MR. CALLISON: It's like being a fireman or any of those kind of things. We were able to retire but nobody retires. You're too young. MR. MCDANIEL: Of course. MR. CALLISON: Because I had gone and gotten my master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California, my background was IT and so as soon as I got out of the Coast Guard, I went to work for Battelle Memorial Institute. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: Worked for them for 11 years doing IT. I've been in that business ever since I retired. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: How did you end up in Oak Ridge? MR. CALLISON: I ended up in Oak Ridge about seven years ... Actually Bonnie Carroll, who's the owner of the Information International Associates, ... MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: … was bidding on a big job here in Oak Ridge to provide all the IT support for the lab, for the ORO [Oak Ridge Operations] headquarters and ETTP [East Tennessee Technology Park], all the major facilities here. My company, that I was working with in Washington, D.C., was working with her. I got to meet Bonnie and her, at the time, John Rumble who was her vice president, started talking to me about, "Would you think about coming to Oak Ridge? We could use somebody like you down here." I said I was interested and we kept communicating. Talked probably for six or eight months about it and Bonnie said, "Well, come on down and let's see if you like Tennessee." My wife and I, we were getting quite tired of the traffic around the Washington, D.C., area, which it's famous for. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course. MR. CALLISON: We came down here and really loved the area and just moved down here and been here ever since. MR. MCDANIEL: You came down to work for Bonnie's company? MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: I imagine she got the contract. Did she get the contract? MR. CALLISON: She did not get the contract. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, she did not? Okay. MR. CALLISON: No. We have done very well in spite of the fact. In fact, actually, it's probably seven years later, we finally got the contract. A different way. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: We are working. We're providing IT support for CNS [Consolidated Nuclear Security] over at Y-12. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Exactly. That's what you do is you do IT support. MR. CALLISON: I manage IT staff. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right, right. Had you ever, when you came to Oak Ridge, when you came down to visit, had you ever been to Oak Ridge before? MR. CALLISON: No, in fact we laugh about that. Oak Ridge was big in the service. We always had our wish list of where you wanted to live. I used to say to everybody, "Oak Ridge was never on my list." MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Tennessee was never on my list. I never ... I'm a west coast guy and then I lived in New England and Virginia, so Tennessee never, anywhere south really, never been place that I had thought about living. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. Why is that? Did you have preconceived notions of ... MR. CALLISON: Well, maybe the South. I had probably a little bit of a preconceived notion about the South. It just was an area that we just really had never had spent any time in. We didn't have any basis of making a decision one way or the other. I do say, I do tell all my friends that after I got down here I love it and I never see me leaving. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. That's what I was going to say. When you first came to Oak Ridge, what were your impressions? You've probably lived in much bigger cities and bigger places and Oak Ridge is a fairly small town. MR. CALLISON: It is a very small town but I ... It's funny, being on city council now and running for election and everything else, you really get to get a sense of the city and it just has so much to offer. It's just because it was so self-contained during the war. It's been one of those places that really has been able to maintain that kind of ... The orchestra, the Playhouse, all the things that were created during the war so people would be entertained, because they were bringing people in from all over the world, all over the United States I should say. I think it just really retains that. For a city of 30,000 people, we like to think we really have a lot to offer. It's pretty amazing. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand, I understand. I guess when you and your wife came here your kids were grown. I guess your kids were grown. MR. CALLISON: My kids are grown but I also now ... I've remarried. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. MR. CALLISON: I have nine-year-old twin boys. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Wow. MR. CALLISON: They go to Linden Elementary School. One of the things that really impressed us about Oak Ridge was the school system. It's been ... My wife's very involved with the school system. She's the president of the PTO council. She's very involved with the elementary school in particular and we've been ... having coming from a family of teachers, it's one thing that I really appreciate is that how great the school systems here and how dedicated the teachers are to the kids and improving everybody's, I guess, position in life for lack of a better term. One of the things I think is always funny to me is the fact that right now we have about 57% free and reduced lunch, that's the population we're working with. Our teachers are able to work really hard and make us one of the best school districts in the state of Tennessee. Actually compared to around the country, I think one of the best school systems around. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Yeah, that just goes to show, that 57% shows, the changing demographic of Oak Ridge ... MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: … from what it's traditionally been. Really, upper middle class to where we don't quite have that. It's more middle class now than upper middle class. MR. CALLISON: Oh yeah. If you think about the birth of the town, we brought scientists in from every university in the country. We brought in the top military engineers. We brought in a huge population, educated population that ... One of the reasons our schools are so good and we have the Playhouse, these people demanded, "If you're going to bring us all here and lock us up behind the fence, you better provide for us." MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. MR. CALLISON: I think that's one of the roots of Oak Ridge that really makes it special and so unique. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Exactly, exactly. You're in Oak Ridge, you're working here and do you travel a lot with your job? MR. CALLISON: We have a very large contract in Washington, D.C., so I typically will spend two or three days a month up in Washington managing that work. MR. MCDANIEL: You're here in Oak Ridge and you decided to run for city council. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me, how did that come about and had you ever been interested in holding a political office prior to that? MR. CALLISON: I've never been interested in holding a political office. I like to think that I was involved in my community. I was the president of our homeowners association when I lived up in Washington, D.C. It really gave me a good sense of how important it was to be involved politically. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: I just decided that it was a time in life where it was important to have a say in where the city was going and it was a great opportunity. It's a small town. It's hard to imagine, after you go and run for an election even in Oak Ridge with 30,000 people, maybe 12,000 voters, it's hard to imagine running for President. The effort that's required, the organization and everything else. It's really an eye opener. I wish that a lot more people would consider running for office or at least participating in our system, being on the boards or anything like that. I think it's just fascinating. MR. MCDANIEL: How long have you been on city council? MR. CALLISON: I've been on two years. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, so you were here five years, or four years, four years and decided to run for city council. Were you approached or ... MR. CALLISON: No. MR. MCDANIEL: You just decided ... MR. CALLISON: I just decided to run. I actually ran two years before that. It was Chuck Hope's seat was open and there was another open seat on there and at that time so I ran. There was a special election. Chuck and Trina, Trina Baughn, were running for a seat. Trina got out and really got to know a lot of people and Chuck won that special election. Then they had another election six months later ... MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, it was not too long after that. MR. CALLISON: Not too much longer. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. CALLISON: They really were well known, but I ran against them and that was my first taste of what it was like to get out in the neighborhoods and meet people. It was fascinating. I tell everybody that ... I don't remember how many homes I visited, but I visited a lot of homes and people were just really great. They were very interested in what you were doing and they were very interested in how the community was going to go, where it was going to go in the future. It was a really good experience. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you find being a relative newcomer to Oak Ridge, did you find that to be a challenge for people? MR. CALLISON: No, I didn't find it to be a challenge because one of the first things I did, I joined Rotary. I've been very involved in the community. I was part of Contact Care Line which has been in place for about 40 years here in Oak Ridge and I was involved in ... I've been involved in ETEC [East Tennessee Economic Council] from the beginning and also involved in the Chamber of Commerce advocacy committee. I felt like I quickly immersed myself in ... MR. MCDANIEL: In the community. MR. CALLISON: With the issues, the communities. I was very interested in schools and so I think I brought an interesting perspective in the elections. I've lived all over the country. I've lived from New York City to Los Angeles and seen what works, what doesn't work. That was my pitch was I've seen things that work, that work really well and those are the things I think I can bring to the table. MR. MCDANIEL: Just to show how Oak Ridge is different, any other town in East Tennessee somebody comes in and is here for three or four years and runs for city council, they wouldn't have a chance. MR. CALLISON: Oh, yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: It's the typical good 'ol boy system, whereas Oak Ridge is ... I'm sure it has some of that, but not nearly as much as some of the other cities and counties around. Everybody that lives in Oak Ridge, is not from here. MR. CALLISON: Oh, yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: That's the thing. MR. CALLISON: When I lived in Detroit, Michigan, I actually lived in Gross Point Park and our next door neighbor had been born and raised in the area and it was funny because you really were considered an outsider. It didn't ever seem like you could ever become an insider. You were always an outsider because you weren't born and raised in that community. I am very much aware of that kind of a situation. MR. MCDANIEL: There's some of that in Oak Ridge. Original Oak Ridgers especially. When we call them original Oak Ridgers, they came here in the ‘40s in their 20s. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: They say, "I'm a fairly newcomer to Oak Ridge. I've only been here 25 years." It's one of those situations. You were elected to city council in 2014? MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. The last couple of years on city council has been interesting. MR. CALLISON: Definitely. MR. MCDANIEL: Let's talk a little bit about what were some of the issues that y'all were facing, and what are some of the things that you had challenges, that you had and perhaps still have? MR. CALLISON: I think probably the biggest challenges the city faces is that is our infrastructure came out of the ground and in the 40s, '43, '44. We probably haven't done as good of job as we should've with what I would call continual maintenance and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: Things are breaking. One of our biggest issues right now is our water system. We have to do something with the water plant. That's one of the things we're considering and we've gotten estimates that it's going to cost us anywhere from $40 million to say $44 million dollars to replace ... to build a new plant. At the same time, we have our infrastructure in the city that distributes the water and we're having an inordinate amount of breaks in our system. We've got to look at that versus how do we put the money into the system. So there are a lot of trials, things that we have to consider. We have a fixed tax break ... Not tax break, fixed tax base that we deal with this. They really, we have to figure out what's really important, how do we get it done. It's just like having a household budget. You only get so much money, you make so much money and you have to figure out how to spend it, what's important. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: That's what we're working on right now. I think the most exciting thing, it sounds like a campaign speech, but the mall, it's huge, it's huge. People have been waiting 20 years for something to happen with the mall. You can drive around it right now and it's wiped off the face of the earth and they're rebuilding. Belk's putting a new entrance on it and engineering everything else. I sound like a politician but I like to tell everybody that, "Hey, I've been here. I did it." MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand. MR. CALLISON: We say we like to stand on the shoulders of all those people that have gone ahead of us. A lot of really good people have worked on these things for years. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. The mall, you've got the mall, you've got the infrastructure ... MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: As an issue. MR. CALLISON: The infrastructure and continuing the cost of running the schools and making sure that they stay at the top in standings and in the state. Just a lot of the stuff in infrastructure. We need new roofs on some of our buildings, on the schools, on the multipurpose facility. There's just a lot of things to consider. We had the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] mandate where we had to fix the storm water systems so we spent $16 million dollars in bonds on that. We're finishing up the schools. We're still paying for the schools. It was a critical improvements to the schools if we wanted to stay on top the way we are. Those are all the costs. That's what we're constantly trying to decide: where do you spend your money. We need a couple big things. One that is coming up right now is the Senior Center. They're going to be moving from where they are over in the Anderson County building over to ... They're going to move over to the Civic Center and then they would like to have the seniors have ... MR. MCDANIEL: They'd like to have their own building. MR. CALLISON: They'd like to have their own building. They'd like to have a place that they can call their own. That's one of the big things. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: Like everything else, it's just a matter of trying to figure out what's the most important thing to most of the people in the city. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand. I understand. What have been some of the big challenges the last two years? Other than those? MR. CALLISON: Well, we had the whole issue with the Police Department. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: And the chief and I personally I think the chief has done a fabulous job. It was a different environment for him. He's learned how to work in this environment and everything else. One of the things that, the whole issue with the Police Department that I learned about being on council is, at the time, we were selected by ... I think we were elected by 3,500 people or whatever the number was at the time. It wasn't a Presidential election, so it wasn't a huge turnout like we just had. We had a council chamber full of people. You can only get 110 people in the council chamber. It's almost like everybody is against this thing, or whatever the issue is. MR. MCDANIEL: Everybody's against it. MR. CALLISON: When you put it in perspective, you're elected by 3,500 people. You have a very small percentage of people trying to push a particular agenda. It's that whole, getting a sense of what does the community really want, which is hard. You've got to talk to people and people need to reach out to you and tell you what they're thinking so that you really get a good sense of what direction we should be going in. MR. MCDANIEL: If a controversial vote were to come up, you're exactly right. People that are against it get all their friends to show up to city council and it seems like the whole city is ... MR. CALLISON: It's tilting in that direction. MR. MCDANIEL: …attacking you. They've got their pitchforks ready. MR. CALLISON: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Excuse me. You do have a couple of new council people. MR. CALLISON: Yeah, we're very excited about that. MR. MCDANIEL: Folks that are coming. MR. CALLISON: Hans and Jim are going to be joining the council in December and Chuck Hope was successful in his campaign. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: I think we have a really good council that can work together. We'll find our way. We'll be able to set some priorities. I think Mark Watson, the city manager, does an excellent job of running the city from day to day. We always laugh because the city council's one employee is the city manager. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. MR. CALLISON: We have to get used to that, because you really can't go around the city manager and try to run the city for him. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Exactly. MR. CALLISON: I think he's done a really good job. MR. MCDANIEL: Talk a little bit about the relationship with the schools. It seems like it's always a challenge. I mean, historically. MR. CALLISON: I've been here for this will be my eighth year. I was here and I saw the whole issue: the schools and the city were fighting against each other whether or not the school was going to pay their share of the bond issue and everything else. I think we've gotten back on an even keel that I think both sides understand how important it is to have a working relationship. We've tried to have a much better understanding of where the schools are going. I think Bruce has done a really good job as superintendent. He's really finding a good balance and that's one of the things that's I think very exciting for all of us. We always worry about, "Well, is Maryville doing better than we are, or Knox or Farragut?" and all these kinds of things. One of the things that Bruce is bringing to fruition is this ... I will have to say that one of the things I always heard on the council, I should say in the last two years, primarily is that the school system doesn't take care of the middle of the school. The middle student. They're really good at taking care of the really high performers and they take care of the kids that are at the bottom, but there's this whole big group in the middle that just doesn't seem like they get the attention they need. I've heard that from parents and things like that. Good friends of mine have talked about that. I think that that's one of the things that they really addressed. They're going to bring in ROTC, they're looking ... they have shop classes now for the kids that are very interested in that kind of a path. They really, I think, really have done a good job recently putting the programs in place that take care of the whole community. I think that's really critical. I think that makes us stand apart from the other school districts that are around us. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: I'm very excited about that. I think we have a really good working relationship with the school board. We can go to them and tell them what our concerns are about the budget and things like that. Like for instance whether or not we make something a reoccurring cost or a one-time cost. Then it becomes, as you know in Tennessee, if it becomes a recurring cost then it's in the base and you can't change it. I think we've been very successful at having those kind of discussions and coming to a common agreement about where we are going and how to fund it and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand, I understand. What was my next question? We mentioned earlier when we were talking about the changing demographic of Oak Ridge. Talk a little bit about that. How do you see that affecting Oak Ridge's future because it is a reality? MR. CALLISON: Well, I think the biggest driver for us is our housing stock. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: Because we have so many of the homes that were Manhattan era homes that, quite frankly, haven't been kept up. MR. MCDANIEL: They were built to last seven years. MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: 70-something years later they're still ... MR. CALLISON: We should be so good about our estimates on everything we do. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. CALLISON: One of my campaign things was the schools are important, housing is critical, and then we talk about commercial enterprises and retail and things coming in. Housing is a big problem and I think it's just a constant problem. We have the Land Bank now, which has been very effective. It's growing and it's helping us clean up some things. MR. MCDANIEL: What does it do? Tell what the Land Bank does. MR. CALLISON: What the Land Bank tries to do is find properties that are depressed for lack of better term, ... MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: … often uninhabitable, and they will buy that property. They buy a lot of ... they'll buy vacant land and things like that and then they use the money that they get from selling properties, once they rebuild it, to try to continuously update the city. MR. MCDANIEL: They'll buy property, improve it, or do whatever needs to be done to it and then turn around and sell it. MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: And hopefully make a little money. MR. CALLISON: Make a little ... To help perpetuate their thing. MR. MCDANIEL: Perpetuate it. Sure, sure. Exactly. Now the Land Bank, is that a function of the city or is that an independent? MR. CALLISON: It's a function of the city. It acts independently. The city provides them with some funding. MR. MCDANIEL: I see. MR. CALLISON: There is a charter. It's chartered with the state. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: In fact, we were the first one in the state to be chartered. It's become a model for other cities. Memphis has one I think now and I'm trying to remember who else does, but ... MR. MCDANIEL: It operates kind of like the chamber or the ... MR. CALLISON: Quasi independent, right. MR. MCDANIEL: The chamber or The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. They're independent but they do rely on the city for some funding and things such as that. MR. CALLISON: My big thing, which I discovered when I first got elected was the Housing Authority, which runs our ... They do a really good job of running our housing. They are the probably the second most powerful entity in the state of Tennessee. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. CALLISON: Yes. They can sell bonds, they can condemn, they can do amazing things. If you read the state constitution and things like that, it's just amazing what ... That's one of the areas that we have been trying to work with the Housing Authority. They have not been interested in using some of those powers. I'm not talking about just running around willy-nilly doing things, but to put a plan in place to really help the city work with the housing group, work with the Land Bank ... MR. MCDANIEL: Land Bank. MR. CALLISON: The housing people and we have development grants ourselves with the community development group. They all need to work together on improving the stock of housing. I think what you have to ... you end up having to say is that we really need a rising tide to lift all, everybody in town. That's one of the reasons why we're so focused on new business coming in, new jobs. For instance, the bike guy. I shouldn't call him the bike guy. MR. MCDANIEL: The bike guy, sure. MR. CALLISON: The bike guy, yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: The world class bike guy. MR. CALLISON: The world class bike guy. MR. MCDANIEL: That's better. MR. CALLISON: Opportunity. There are jobs on the horizon and those are the kinds of things that we ... It's just all these things have to work together. We have the schools to train the kids, we have the industry for them to go to work for, the housing that brings that we are raising the standards for that eventually brings up the whole city. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: You really have to take a long term view of this whole thing. It's not happening overnight for sure. MR. MCDANIEL: Two things that come out of that that I want to ask you about. First, is the ... and you don't always ... Things don't always go the way you wish they did, kind of like the Canadian company, what was that? MR. CALLISON: CN ... C ... MR. MCDANIEL: CBMR. MR. CALLISON: CBMR. CVMR. MR. MCDANIEL: CVMR. MR. CALLISON: Yes. They are still interested. In fact ... MR. MCDANIEL: They were going to come here and build a big carbon facility, process facility or something like that. MR. CALLISON: Not carbon, but they were ... MR. MCDANIEL: Fiber, fiber. It was fiber. Some kind of fiber. MR. CALLISON: They have a lot of mineral contracts. They have things that they produce a lot of specialty minerals that get used in industry. They're still very interested in coming here. We don't know. We ask but ... I understand why, but as a member of city council, we're probably the last ones that anybody ever tells anything to. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. MR. CALLISON: We want to tell all of our fans how great we're doing. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. CALLISON: They're still on the hook. They're still interested in the community. MR. MCDANIEL: I know Ray Evans has been doing some work with the city to really pursue those kinds of opportunities, hasn't he? MR. CALLISON: Yes, he has. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that what he's doing? MR. CALLISON: He's mostly concerned with commercial businesses like the mall. He was instrumental in working with the developer in the mall and things like that. That seems to be his more ... and housing kind of thing is his area of expertise. The mall is just a huge, from our perspective, given that it's going to do well, it's going to be a huge success ... MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: To really help the city. MR. MCDANIEL: It'll take a few years to get everything in that needs to be there. It's going to be kind of like a ... I was driving there the other day with my son and we looked over and I said, "It looks like it's going to be a little mini Turkey Creek." MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: The way it's going to be set up. MR. CALLISON: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Kind of an open air retail spaces and things such as that. The other thing that I was going to ask you about is you talked about the school system, you talked about creating jobs, having opportunities ... having opportunities to train students for jobs both in the high school level and through Roane State. They're making a huge effort now to train a workforce. Not necessarily for four-year college people, but workforce for technical skills and things such as that. How do you see that affecting Oak Ridge and the future? MR. CALLISON: I think they're really very positive. Pellissippi and Roane State are working together very closely. I see them, they're always at ETEC. The president of Roane State has just become the president of this year’s ... He'll be the ...call it the president of ETEC. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. MR. CALLISON: They just put out a work plan for the ETEC, the things that they want to approach and all the things. There's like $14 billion dollars worth of projects potentially, potential projects on the horizon for Oak Ridge. At Oak Ridge National Lab, a new target for the Spallation Neutron Source. There are the buildings, the UPF [Uranium Processing Facility] at Y-12, $6 billion dollars by itself plus the cleanup work that's going out at ETTP [East Tennessee Technology Park] which people can see the end result of that. It's getting close to being done at ETTP and they'll move over to Y-12 next. From a ... I don't want to call it a spin perspective but I think things are just really, the stars are all aligning for us. We just have to keep going forward and pushing forward and getting these things done. MR. MCDANIEL: Speaking of the federal government and the city of Oak Ridge, there seems to be a little bit of contention, a contentious relationship lately. Talk a little bit about that. Of course, it's always been that way, but Oak Ridge is really relied on the federal government for historically, but what's the relationship now between ... Try not to spin it too much. MR. CALLISON: No, I'm not. I would say that the probably the biggest thing that has changed is when Gerald Boyd was the last head of ORO [Oak Ridge Operations], everything worked through him. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: When he moved on to the industry and things like that, what we ended up with, and I understand why each of the programs ... Why the Lab, why Y-12 and why ETTP all liked to work directly for the boss. We all want to work directly for the boss. That tends to be where we are currently. They've all working for assistant secretaries ... MR. MCDANIEL: In Washington. MR. CALLISON: In Washington, and they all have their own agendas and so we still have ORO. They're responsible for just the operation of the property. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. They don't have ... MR. CALLISON: The clout. MR. MCDANIEL: The clout that Gerald Boyd had when he was in that position. MR. CALLISON: Exactly. I think that's part of the issue and then, they're good stewards of the government's money, other people's money I guess. The taxes. So there's always some tension. We'd like them to give us millions of dollars ... MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: For being here and having all this land set aside for DOE [Department of Energy]. We're working hard with them. Probably the one thing right now that's the hardest thing is the water plant. Who's going to pay for it, how do we pay for it? Those kinds of things. MR. MCDANIEL: Because they use ... They use so much ... MR. CALLISON: They use so much water from it. MR. MCDANIEL: So much water. MR. CALLISON: Excuse me. MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. MR. CALLISON: Sorry. MR. MCDANIEL: That's all right. That's no problem. Yeah, they use so much water. MR. CALLISON: Half the water, yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. So anyway. When the city deals with them now, are they dealing with the folks in Washington or are they dealing with the local folks? MR. CALLISON: Primarily with the local folks. We do try to use sparingly our congressman. Congressman Fleischmann, he's a very good advocate for us and things like that. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket in terms of going after one single issue. We try to look across the spectrum of all the different things. We'd like them to do land transfers faster so we could get more of the land available to do commercial development and things like that. There are a lot of issues where we, as you well know, that we deal with DOE. Probably the most frustrating right now is just the water plant and getting an agreement on how do we go forward, what rate do we charge them, those kinds of things. Right now we're still working on our interim agreement that we've had in place for a little while. It's just people. Got to work with them and get it to work. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Is there a plan in place, a specific plan in place other than to create more jobs in Oak Ridge or is it just a bunch of different things being done at the same time. MR. CALLISON: Well, we do have ... It's a whole bunch of different things. I think that there is ... Mark Watson and the city is working with our advocates in the chamber of commerce. Chamber is primarily looking at retail, those kinds of things. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: Mark and his group are primarily looking at larger industries. We have, I wouldn't call it ... I think it's looking for new business which then implies that they will bring jobs. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: I think that is our focus. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: Again, they don't tell city council all this stuff, but my understanding is that we've had more inquiries in the last year than they could ever remember before. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. CALLISON: That people are interested, we've gotten our name out. Parker Hardy and his group goes every year to Vegas to the big retail show in Las Vegas. We have a pretty much dedicated group that's trying out looking for industry, trying to bring them in and sell them on Oak Ridge. I think the timing is right because ETTP is really getting cleaned up and there's a lot of land out there that can be used for different kinds of businesses. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, but those would mostly be industrial ... MR. CALLISON: Industrial. MR. MCDANIEL: That type of things because it's going to be ... Is it going to be a brown field? MR. CALLISON: It depends on where you are. MR. MCDANIEL: Depends on where you are. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: The other big issue for us, it's infrastructure too. Out at ETTP and Horizon and Heritage Center (the big issue) is power. I know our Electric Department is looking at different ways to bring in large quantities of power. Even Lamont and his ... with his carbon fiber, it takes a lot of power to do some of that stuff. MR. MCDANIEL: They've done it before. They did it 70 years ago. MR. CALLISON: Absolutely. MR. MCDANIEL: They can certainly do it again I guess. MR. CALLISON: Yeah, yeah. Well, and then it's always balancing between the concern about the environment versus what we need for industry. Power lines sometime people say, "Well, we don't want power lines going back through our green space. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: You've got to get the power in and it doesn't make sense to put it underground. It's what we do. It's a constant trade off to try to make everybody happy as much as possible. MR. MCDANIEL: Oak Ridge is fairly, and I think traditionally and historically has been ... How shall I put this? It's had a lot of environmental activism. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that, other than what you just mentioned, do you find that to be a challenge? Is it something that is ... is that activism powerful enough to keep progress from happening? I guess progress is a relative word. It depends on how you use it. MR. CALLISON: Right. I just think it has to be balanced. You need people to be looking at both sides and I think that's what we have to do. We have to be able to have a sensible conversation with people and understand where they're coming from, understanding what are the trade-offs and things like that and find a place that we all can gain from. I think it's good that we have that, we have the environmental concerns because if you look at our history and the kinds of places that we have around the city, people needed to be concerned about it and clean it up. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: It's just finding that happy balance. I always think that's what our job is to try to find that happy balance and get people to work together and see the future. MR. MCDANIEL: There's been a lot of talk over the years of and this kind of goes back to the housing market, "Wouldn't it be great if everybody that worked in Oak Ridge lived in Oak Ridge. The way it used to be." Is that an unrealistic expectation? MR. CALLISON: Yep. It is. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Yeah. MR. CALLISON: I think we have to make Oak Ridge be the place that people want to live. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: You can't force people to live here. They did. As you said, probably not too long ago the companies that were running Y-12 and running all the other places, they could tell their managers where they're going to live. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: It's not that way anymore and so I think it's just critical for us to make ourselves the place that people want to live and see it. That's the other thing too. MR. MCDANIEL: I guess being kind of land locked with no ... Not being able to really expand geographically, that creates another problem other than the fact ... You can't go out and build nice new neighborhoods very much. MR. CALLISON: Well, we have a lot of land that we could be building new neighborhoods on. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: We do. MR. MCDANIEL: What do you do with the other, the old housing stuff? MR. CALLISON: Well, that's the whole process. You've got to be able to change out, move. I don't want to call it “tear down.” That's not the right term. I think naturally that if you can create an environment that people want to live here, it creates the market for the housing, causes the builders to upgrade homes or knock them down and build new homes. I think that if you look at the ... like for instance the mall property and how far out we went with the zone that's going to look at. It actually, and I just ... Manhattan, of all the Manhattan apartments are up there. They've been there for a long time. MR. MCDANIEL: A long time. MR. CALLISON: If it became economically viable, then there could be something happening in that area. It could be very easily taken care of with zoning and things like that. The people that owned it decided that they could, for lack of a better term, make more money by changing out the apartments and going to something that potentially is a little more dense, or higher end. All kinds of things. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: I see us having huge number of possibilities and just trying to focus in on our limited resources, on the ones that are going to be most successful. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Speaking of limited resources, there's a ... I don't know how much the city is involved with this, and I don't know what the city's ... Really, I don't know what the city's position is on this with the American Museum of Science and Energy is ... It has been on the chopping block for some years now because DOE doesn't want to perpetually ... MR. CALLISON: Pay for it. MR. MCDANIEL: Pay for it. MR. CALLISON: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: What do you see or has there been discussions with the city council or with the city manager or anything like that about AMSE [American Museum of Science and Energy]? MR. CALLISON: Yes. It's a constant discussion. I think the issue has been that the particular ... the facility today as it exists is not ... it doesn't have the right ... it doesn't fit what they really need. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: I think what they're constantly looking for, how can we do this differently, how can we tie it into the National Park Service and things like that. I think there's a constant conversation going on about that. We announced the other day that our builder who's rebuilding the mall also has taken an option on buying that property where AMSE is sitting there and, in particular, looking to develop the front half of that area first and then looking at some way to ... How can we provide the functions of AMSE but in a different location potentially or something like that is the thing that they're looking at right now. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, because they've been in that building since 1972. That's a long time since they moved from Jefferson. That building is no longer there. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: I remember going to that building and getting my radioactive dime when I was in elementary school. Anyway. All right. Let's see what else. There's a couple other things I wanted to ask you about. What can you see for Oak Ridge in let's say 10, 15 years from now? When you're about ready to retire from political life. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. I truly ... I think an absolutely vibrant downtown mall area that has apartments and ... I'm just talking from the plan. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: 230 units of apartments in the back. The hotel is going to be built. Something's going to happen. People have to have a place to go but if you can think of potentially townhouses or something like that going up where the Manhattan Place is. The whole Target is supposed to ... Not Target, I'm sorry. Kmart. There's a lot of interest in that facility. Right next door to Hobby Lobby, which is doing extremely well and we continue to become a magnet for all the communities around us. Kroger's has set records for the sales at their store. Just this momentum growing and becoming more of a magnet. I laugh because I say, "We compete with Turkey Creek." Well, people I talk to say, "Trust me. If we had a place to go, I would not go over to Turkey Creek." MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, well, it's just a big pain. MR. CALLISON: Well, yeah. It's two roads, I mean a road ... MR. MCDANIEL: A road, yeah. MR. CALLISON: I see just tremendous potential for this town. It's one of those things, I've always said that winning brings more winning. People build on it, they see ... People are very excited to see something happen to the mall after 20 years. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Of course, of course. MR. CALLISON: People are upbeat about things like that and I see that is just perpetuating our growth as the city and things like that, and filling out. Then builders will come in, we're hearing from builders that it's not bad doing work and it's not hard to do work in Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: Traditionally, historically, maybe it was a little more difficult to work in Oak Ridge. MR. CALLISON: Right, but when you see the markets improving and the retails improving and industries coming to town, then builders say, "Well, I can come in and knock down ..." I don't say this like taking people out of their homes. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: … “But I can clear an area and build new homes.” MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: “I can serve the population.” If you look out at the west end of town, and I always forget the name of it because it's changed but there's a huge amount of property out there where they could build and then people could live there and just move over into the Heritage Park or ETTP and work and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly. MR. CALLISON: I'm very excited about the future of Oak Ridge. It's not because I'm a politician. I just think that the things that I'm seeing and the excitement that people are feeling about things, are actually happening. It's really exciting. It's a good time to be here. MR. MCDANIEL: You mentioned earlier that you don't have any plans to leave any time soon. MR. CALLISON: Well, I got nine-year-old boys. I've figure I've got at least nine more years. MR. MCDANIEL: At least. MR. CALLISON: At least. MR. MCDANIEL: At least. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: At least. For sure. Is there anything that I've not asked you about that you'd like to talk about, either personally or professionally or as a member of Oak Ridge City Council? MR. CALLISON: I think it's for people to see the positive things that are happening in the city. I understand that there's been a lot of things that you can get people to start talking about, "Well, why don't we have Target on top of the hill? How did that get killed?" and all this kind of stuff. Well, it's water under the dam. At this point in time, what's happened has happened, and it's a great opportunity for us to move forward. I hope people get on board and that people can see that it will help them too. Given that we have some growth, we can raise our tax base. The number of people that are paying taxes can increase so that we all understand that our taxes should be lower. We'd love them to be lower. That comes with growth. I think you can grow out of so many issues that have existed in the past by having success in commercial and continue the success in our schools and everything else. I think it's just a very exciting time to be on the council, very exciting time to live in Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: One of the things that I didn't mention and I don't know that this has anything to do with the city or not but I think it's good for Oak Ridgers if they'll take advantage of it. If they're able to take advantage of it is that grant from TVA to, speaking of the housing stock, is to renovate. Spend up to $10,000 per home to make homes more energy efficient. MR. CALLISON: There's that and then there's also another grant that they're combining with that, that let's them go in and do things like upgrade the wiring and stuff. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Wow. MR. CALLISON: The only issue that I know that they're having is that so many of our houses are gas. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I'll tell you, I qualify for everything except I have gas heat. I could use $10,000 worth of renovation on this home. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: But because I have gas heat, that knocks me out. MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: They actually called me last week or a week or two ago and said that TVA has raised the ... MR. CALLISON: Level. Income level. MR. MCDANIEL: Income level. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: She said, "Will that help you?" I said, "Well it certainly would," I said, "But the bad thing about it is I still have gas heat." MR. CALLISON: We are talking ... MR. MCDANIEL: I said, "It might be worth disconnecting it for a year and you know." MR. CALLISON: They've talked to Oak Ridge Utility District about there are some places that may have gas service but not being used. They're places in the city. I think it is political I think, I'm sure. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: One of the questions was, "If you're not serving those areas but there is gas available potentially, is there a way that we can say that there's no service?" MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: That's essentially what would have to happen. It is a problem. One of the things in my Rotary Club, I'm in the Breakfast Rotary Club. We do a Christmas angels and Linda Brown from ... Linda Brown, used to be Linda Brown Reality, she does all that and it's a fabulous program. One of the things that I got to do, my family we bought bicycles for kids. These three girls wanted bicycles. We took them over and it was on the W Street and dropped them off and they had the biggest electric heater I've ever seen in my life. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: It was a portable electric heater. I swear the plug was about this big around. You look at it and you go, "This is the perfect place to do the upgrade." MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. CALLISON: Now, it's landlord owned but I understand the landlords can compete for the grants. I just didn't understand. Those are the people that we really need to help. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly, exactly. MR. CALLISON: If it was easy, anybody could do it, right? MR. MCDANIEL: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. MR. CALLISON: Anyway, I really enjoyed it. MR. MCDANIEL: That's a good example of some things that are happening in Oak Ridge, and that we are able to address some of the issues. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: All right. Thank you so much for coming in ... MR. CALLISON: Thank you. I appreciate it. MR. MCDANIEL: And chatting and talking about the issues the way you see them here in our city. MR. CALLISON: It's all in the eye of the beholder, right? MR. MCDANIEL: That's exactly right. All right. Thank you very much.
MR. CALLISON: Thank you. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. [End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF KELLY CALLISON
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
November 18, 2016
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel. Today is November 18, 2016 and I am in my studio here in Oak Ridge with Kelly Callison. Kelly, thank you so much for taking time to come on over and talk with us. MR. CALLISON: Pleasure to be here with you. MR. MCDANIEL: I don't know that we've ever even met before. We may have. MR. CALLISON: We may have passed seeing each other somewhere. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. We've been Facebook friends for a while and I know you're a member of our Oak Ridge City Council. We'll get to that but this is about you. This is your story and your time in Oak Ridge. But even before that, let's start at the beginning. Tell me where you were born and raised. Something about your family. MR. CALLISON: I was born in Van Nuys, California. My family is second generation Californians. We grew up there, went to elementary, high school, all the way through there and never had any plans of leaving the west coast. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yeah. Then I got accepted to Coast Guard Academy and I went away to school in New London, Connecticut in 1967. Went there for four years, graduated and came back to the west coast. My first assignment was on the Coast Guard cutter Rush out of San Francisco. MR. MCDANIEL: What made you decide to join the Coast Guard? MR. CALLISON: The recruiter came to town and gave us a little bit of background about it. I've always been interested in sea, in boating and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you do that when you were growing up in California? MR. CALLISON: Yeah. All my folks and their friends all were water skiers so we all had boats and we spent a lot of time at Lake Tahoe, all the major lakes around the Los Angeles area. Going on vacation and just it was very natural to go from what we were doing and grew up with, to go to the Coast Guard Academy. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. When you were in high school did you kind of know what you wanted to do with your life? MR. CALLISON: Well, my whole family, my entire family we're teachers. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: In fact, my grandmother always used to say to me, "When is it you're going to start teaching?" When I was looking at going to college, I was looking at USC [University of Southern California] or University California Santa Barbara. Some of the schools that were considered to be really good teaching schools. They were quite surprised when I went to the Coast Guard Academy. MR. MCDANIEL: When you went to the Coast Guard Academy, I guess when you go to the Coast Guard Academy, I don't really know, do you learn a trade? MR. CALLISON: It's general education. It's regular college actually. Just college. The only difference is that after you spend four years of school there and graduate, you're obligated to spend five years in the Coast Guard as a minimum. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: It's primarily, at the time was primarily an engineering school. My particular area of expertise was in more my area of study, I should say, was in math and computer science. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Okay, so you went to school and then you spent five years in the Coast Guard? MR. CALLISON: I actually spent 20 years in the Coast Guard. MR. MCDANIEL: 20 years? Oh, wow. MR. CALLISON: Yep. I was on the west coast, then on the east coast, and I ended up, I used to laugh about it. I ended up teaching at the Coast Guard Academy in my last three years in the Coast Guard. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, there you go. MR. CALLISON: Yep. My grandmother got her wish. MR. MCDANIEL: How funny. How funny. Were you married or have a family during all this? MR. CALLISON: I was married. I got married to a woman out of Cleveland, Ohio, and we had two sons and moved around quite a bit. I think I moved 12 times in the time I was in the Coast Guard. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh wow. MR. CALLISON: I really enjoyed it. It was great, great living. I loved the life and I had worked with a lot of great people. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. After 20 years were you able to retire? Was that the situation? MR. CALLISON: It's like being a fireman or any of those kind of things. We were able to retire but nobody retires. You're too young. MR. MCDANIEL: Of course. MR. CALLISON: Because I had gone and gotten my master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California, my background was IT and so as soon as I got out of the Coast Guard, I went to work for Battelle Memorial Institute. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: Worked for them for 11 years doing IT. I've been in that business ever since I retired. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: How did you end up in Oak Ridge? MR. CALLISON: I ended up in Oak Ridge about seven years ... Actually Bonnie Carroll, who's the owner of the Information International Associates, ... MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: … was bidding on a big job here in Oak Ridge to provide all the IT support for the lab, for the ORO [Oak Ridge Operations] headquarters and ETTP [East Tennessee Technology Park], all the major facilities here. My company, that I was working with in Washington, D.C., was working with her. I got to meet Bonnie and her, at the time, John Rumble who was her vice president, started talking to me about, "Would you think about coming to Oak Ridge? We could use somebody like you down here." I said I was interested and we kept communicating. Talked probably for six or eight months about it and Bonnie said, "Well, come on down and let's see if you like Tennessee." My wife and I, we were getting quite tired of the traffic around the Washington, D.C., area, which it's famous for. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course. MR. CALLISON: We came down here and really loved the area and just moved down here and been here ever since. MR. MCDANIEL: You came down to work for Bonnie's company? MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: I imagine she got the contract. Did she get the contract? MR. CALLISON: She did not get the contract. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, she did not? Okay. MR. CALLISON: No. We have done very well in spite of the fact. In fact, actually, it's probably seven years later, we finally got the contract. A different way. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: We are working. We're providing IT support for CNS [Consolidated Nuclear Security] over at Y-12. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Exactly. That's what you do is you do IT support. MR. CALLISON: I manage IT staff. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right, right. Had you ever, when you came to Oak Ridge, when you came down to visit, had you ever been to Oak Ridge before? MR. CALLISON: No, in fact we laugh about that. Oak Ridge was big in the service. We always had our wish list of where you wanted to live. I used to say to everybody, "Oak Ridge was never on my list." MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Tennessee was never on my list. I never ... I'm a west coast guy and then I lived in New England and Virginia, so Tennessee never, anywhere south really, never been place that I had thought about living. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. Why is that? Did you have preconceived notions of ... MR. CALLISON: Well, maybe the South. I had probably a little bit of a preconceived notion about the South. It just was an area that we just really had never had spent any time in. We didn't have any basis of making a decision one way or the other. I do say, I do tell all my friends that after I got down here I love it and I never see me leaving. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. That's what I was going to say. When you first came to Oak Ridge, what were your impressions? You've probably lived in much bigger cities and bigger places and Oak Ridge is a fairly small town. MR. CALLISON: It is a very small town but I ... It's funny, being on city council now and running for election and everything else, you really get to get a sense of the city and it just has so much to offer. It's just because it was so self-contained during the war. It's been one of those places that really has been able to maintain that kind of ... The orchestra, the Playhouse, all the things that were created during the war so people would be entertained, because they were bringing people in from all over the world, all over the United States I should say. I think it just really retains that. For a city of 30,000 people, we like to think we really have a lot to offer. It's pretty amazing. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand, I understand. I guess when you and your wife came here your kids were grown. I guess your kids were grown. MR. CALLISON: My kids are grown but I also now ... I've remarried. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. MR. CALLISON: I have nine-year-old twin boys. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Wow. MR. CALLISON: They go to Linden Elementary School. One of the things that really impressed us about Oak Ridge was the school system. It's been ... My wife's very involved with the school system. She's the president of the PTO council. She's very involved with the elementary school in particular and we've been ... having coming from a family of teachers, it's one thing that I really appreciate is that how great the school systems here and how dedicated the teachers are to the kids and improving everybody's, I guess, position in life for lack of a better term. One of the things I think is always funny to me is the fact that right now we have about 57% free and reduced lunch, that's the population we're working with. Our teachers are able to work really hard and make us one of the best school districts in the state of Tennessee. Actually compared to around the country, I think one of the best school systems around. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Yeah, that just goes to show, that 57% shows, the changing demographic of Oak Ridge ... MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: … from what it's traditionally been. Really, upper middle class to where we don't quite have that. It's more middle class now than upper middle class. MR. CALLISON: Oh yeah. If you think about the birth of the town, we brought scientists in from every university in the country. We brought in the top military engineers. We brought in a huge population, educated population that ... One of the reasons our schools are so good and we have the Playhouse, these people demanded, "If you're going to bring us all here and lock us up behind the fence, you better provide for us." MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. MR. CALLISON: I think that's one of the roots of Oak Ridge that really makes it special and so unique. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Exactly, exactly. You're in Oak Ridge, you're working here and do you travel a lot with your job? MR. CALLISON: We have a very large contract in Washington, D.C., so I typically will spend two or three days a month up in Washington managing that work. MR. MCDANIEL: You're here in Oak Ridge and you decided to run for city council. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me, how did that come about and had you ever been interested in holding a political office prior to that? MR. CALLISON: I've never been interested in holding a political office. I like to think that I was involved in my community. I was the president of our homeowners association when I lived up in Washington, D.C. It really gave me a good sense of how important it was to be involved politically. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: I just decided that it was a time in life where it was important to have a say in where the city was going and it was a great opportunity. It's a small town. It's hard to imagine, after you go and run for an election even in Oak Ridge with 30,000 people, maybe 12,000 voters, it's hard to imagine running for President. The effort that's required, the organization and everything else. It's really an eye opener. I wish that a lot more people would consider running for office or at least participating in our system, being on the boards or anything like that. I think it's just fascinating. MR. MCDANIEL: How long have you been on city council? MR. CALLISON: I've been on two years. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, so you were here five years, or four years, four years and decided to run for city council. Were you approached or ... MR. CALLISON: No. MR. MCDANIEL: You just decided ... MR. CALLISON: I just decided to run. I actually ran two years before that. It was Chuck Hope's seat was open and there was another open seat on there and at that time so I ran. There was a special election. Chuck and Trina, Trina Baughn, were running for a seat. Trina got out and really got to know a lot of people and Chuck won that special election. Then they had another election six months later ... MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, it was not too long after that. MR. CALLISON: Not too much longer. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. CALLISON: They really were well known, but I ran against them and that was my first taste of what it was like to get out in the neighborhoods and meet people. It was fascinating. I tell everybody that ... I don't remember how many homes I visited, but I visited a lot of homes and people were just really great. They were very interested in what you were doing and they were very interested in how the community was going to go, where it was going to go in the future. It was a really good experience. MR. MCDANIEL: Did you find being a relative newcomer to Oak Ridge, did you find that to be a challenge for people? MR. CALLISON: No, I didn't find it to be a challenge because one of the first things I did, I joined Rotary. I've been very involved in the community. I was part of Contact Care Line which has been in place for about 40 years here in Oak Ridge and I was involved in ... I've been involved in ETEC [East Tennessee Economic Council] from the beginning and also involved in the Chamber of Commerce advocacy committee. I felt like I quickly immersed myself in ... MR. MCDANIEL: In the community. MR. CALLISON: With the issues, the communities. I was very interested in schools and so I think I brought an interesting perspective in the elections. I've lived all over the country. I've lived from New York City to Los Angeles and seen what works, what doesn't work. That was my pitch was I've seen things that work, that work really well and those are the things I think I can bring to the table. MR. MCDANIEL: Just to show how Oak Ridge is different, any other town in East Tennessee somebody comes in and is here for three or four years and runs for city council, they wouldn't have a chance. MR. CALLISON: Oh, yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: It's the typical good 'ol boy system, whereas Oak Ridge is ... I'm sure it has some of that, but not nearly as much as some of the other cities and counties around. Everybody that lives in Oak Ridge, is not from here. MR. CALLISON: Oh, yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: That's the thing. MR. CALLISON: When I lived in Detroit, Michigan, I actually lived in Gross Point Park and our next door neighbor had been born and raised in the area and it was funny because you really were considered an outsider. It didn't ever seem like you could ever become an insider. You were always an outsider because you weren't born and raised in that community. I am very much aware of that kind of a situation. MR. MCDANIEL: There's some of that in Oak Ridge. Original Oak Ridgers especially. When we call them original Oak Ridgers, they came here in the ‘40s in their 20s. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: They say, "I'm a fairly newcomer to Oak Ridge. I've only been here 25 years." It's one of those situations. You were elected to city council in 2014? MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. The last couple of years on city council has been interesting. MR. CALLISON: Definitely. MR. MCDANIEL: Let's talk a little bit about what were some of the issues that y'all were facing, and what are some of the things that you had challenges, that you had and perhaps still have? MR. CALLISON: I think probably the biggest challenges the city faces is that is our infrastructure came out of the ground and in the 40s, '43, '44. We probably haven't done as good of job as we should've with what I would call continual maintenance and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: Things are breaking. One of our biggest issues right now is our water system. We have to do something with the water plant. That's one of the things we're considering and we've gotten estimates that it's going to cost us anywhere from $40 million to say $44 million dollars to replace ... to build a new plant. At the same time, we have our infrastructure in the city that distributes the water and we're having an inordinate amount of breaks in our system. We've got to look at that versus how do we put the money into the system. So there are a lot of trials, things that we have to consider. We have a fixed tax break ... Not tax break, fixed tax base that we deal with this. They really, we have to figure out what's really important, how do we get it done. It's just like having a household budget. You only get so much money, you make so much money and you have to figure out how to spend it, what's important. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: That's what we're working on right now. I think the most exciting thing, it sounds like a campaign speech, but the mall, it's huge, it's huge. People have been waiting 20 years for something to happen with the mall. You can drive around it right now and it's wiped off the face of the earth and they're rebuilding. Belk's putting a new entrance on it and engineering everything else. I sound like a politician but I like to tell everybody that, "Hey, I've been here. I did it." MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand. MR. CALLISON: We say we like to stand on the shoulders of all those people that have gone ahead of us. A lot of really good people have worked on these things for years. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. The mall, you've got the mall, you've got the infrastructure ... MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: As an issue. MR. CALLISON: The infrastructure and continuing the cost of running the schools and making sure that they stay at the top in standings and in the state. Just a lot of the stuff in infrastructure. We need new roofs on some of our buildings, on the schools, on the multipurpose facility. There's just a lot of things to consider. We had the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] mandate where we had to fix the storm water systems so we spent $16 million dollars in bonds on that. We're finishing up the schools. We're still paying for the schools. It was a critical improvements to the schools if we wanted to stay on top the way we are. Those are all the costs. That's what we're constantly trying to decide: where do you spend your money. We need a couple big things. One that is coming up right now is the Senior Center. They're going to be moving from where they are over in the Anderson County building over to ... They're going to move over to the Civic Center and then they would like to have the seniors have ... MR. MCDANIEL: They'd like to have their own building. MR. CALLISON: They'd like to have their own building. They'd like to have a place that they can call their own. That's one of the big things. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: Like everything else, it's just a matter of trying to figure out what's the most important thing to most of the people in the city. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand. I understand. What have been some of the big challenges the last two years? Other than those? MR. CALLISON: Well, we had the whole issue with the Police Department. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: And the chief and I personally I think the chief has done a fabulous job. It was a different environment for him. He's learned how to work in this environment and everything else. One of the things that, the whole issue with the Police Department that I learned about being on council is, at the time, we were selected by ... I think we were elected by 3,500 people or whatever the number was at the time. It wasn't a Presidential election, so it wasn't a huge turnout like we just had. We had a council chamber full of people. You can only get 110 people in the council chamber. It's almost like everybody is against this thing, or whatever the issue is. MR. MCDANIEL: Everybody's against it. MR. CALLISON: When you put it in perspective, you're elected by 3,500 people. You have a very small percentage of people trying to push a particular agenda. It's that whole, getting a sense of what does the community really want, which is hard. You've got to talk to people and people need to reach out to you and tell you what they're thinking so that you really get a good sense of what direction we should be going in. MR. MCDANIEL: If a controversial vote were to come up, you're exactly right. People that are against it get all their friends to show up to city council and it seems like the whole city is ... MR. CALLISON: It's tilting in that direction. MR. MCDANIEL: …attacking you. They've got their pitchforks ready. MR. CALLISON: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Excuse me. You do have a couple of new council people. MR. CALLISON: Yeah, we're very excited about that. MR. MCDANIEL: Folks that are coming. MR. CALLISON: Hans and Jim are going to be joining the council in December and Chuck Hope was successful in his campaign. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: I think we have a really good council that can work together. We'll find our way. We'll be able to set some priorities. I think Mark Watson, the city manager, does an excellent job of running the city from day to day. We always laugh because the city council's one employee is the city manager. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. MR. CALLISON: We have to get used to that, because you really can't go around the city manager and try to run the city for him. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Exactly. MR. CALLISON: I think he's done a really good job. MR. MCDANIEL: Talk a little bit about the relationship with the schools. It seems like it's always a challenge. I mean, historically. MR. CALLISON: I've been here for this will be my eighth year. I was here and I saw the whole issue: the schools and the city were fighting against each other whether or not the school was going to pay their share of the bond issue and everything else. I think we've gotten back on an even keel that I think both sides understand how important it is to have a working relationship. We've tried to have a much better understanding of where the schools are going. I think Bruce has done a really good job as superintendent. He's really finding a good balance and that's one of the things that's I think very exciting for all of us. We always worry about, "Well, is Maryville doing better than we are, or Knox or Farragut?" and all these kinds of things. One of the things that Bruce is bringing to fruition is this ... I will have to say that one of the things I always heard on the council, I should say in the last two years, primarily is that the school system doesn't take care of the middle of the school. The middle student. They're really good at taking care of the really high performers and they take care of the kids that are at the bottom, but there's this whole big group in the middle that just doesn't seem like they get the attention they need. I've heard that from parents and things like that. Good friends of mine have talked about that. I think that that's one of the things that they really addressed. They're going to bring in ROTC, they're looking ... they have shop classes now for the kids that are very interested in that kind of a path. They really, I think, really have done a good job recently putting the programs in place that take care of the whole community. I think that's really critical. I think that makes us stand apart from the other school districts that are around us. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: I'm very excited about that. I think we have a really good working relationship with the school board. We can go to them and tell them what our concerns are about the budget and things like that. Like for instance whether or not we make something a reoccurring cost or a one-time cost. Then it becomes, as you know in Tennessee, if it becomes a recurring cost then it's in the base and you can't change it. I think we've been very successful at having those kind of discussions and coming to a common agreement about where we are going and how to fund it and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. I understand, I understand. What was my next question? We mentioned earlier when we were talking about the changing demographic of Oak Ridge. Talk a little bit about that. How do you see that affecting Oak Ridge's future because it is a reality? MR. CALLISON: Well, I think the biggest driver for us is our housing stock. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: Because we have so many of the homes that were Manhattan era homes that, quite frankly, haven't been kept up. MR. MCDANIEL: They were built to last seven years. MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: 70-something years later they're still ... MR. CALLISON: We should be so good about our estimates on everything we do. MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. MR. CALLISON: One of my campaign things was the schools are important, housing is critical, and then we talk about commercial enterprises and retail and things coming in. Housing is a big problem and I think it's just a constant problem. We have the Land Bank now, which has been very effective. It's growing and it's helping us clean up some things. MR. MCDANIEL: What does it do? Tell what the Land Bank does. MR. CALLISON: What the Land Bank tries to do is find properties that are depressed for lack of better term, ... MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: … often uninhabitable, and they will buy that property. They buy a lot of ... they'll buy vacant land and things like that and then they use the money that they get from selling properties, once they rebuild it, to try to continuously update the city. MR. MCDANIEL: They'll buy property, improve it, or do whatever needs to be done to it and then turn around and sell it. MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: And hopefully make a little money. MR. CALLISON: Make a little ... To help perpetuate their thing. MR. MCDANIEL: Perpetuate it. Sure, sure. Exactly. Now the Land Bank, is that a function of the city or is that an independent? MR. CALLISON: It's a function of the city. It acts independently. The city provides them with some funding. MR. MCDANIEL: I see. MR. CALLISON: There is a charter. It's chartered with the state. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: In fact, we were the first one in the state to be chartered. It's become a model for other cities. Memphis has one I think now and I'm trying to remember who else does, but ... MR. MCDANIEL: It operates kind of like the chamber or the ... MR. CALLISON: Quasi independent, right. MR. MCDANIEL: The chamber or The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. They're independent but they do rely on the city for some funding and things such as that. MR. CALLISON: My big thing, which I discovered when I first got elected was the Housing Authority, which runs our ... They do a really good job of running our housing. They are the probably the second most powerful entity in the state of Tennessee. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. CALLISON: Yes. They can sell bonds, they can condemn, they can do amazing things. If you read the state constitution and things like that, it's just amazing what ... That's one of the areas that we have been trying to work with the Housing Authority. They have not been interested in using some of those powers. I'm not talking about just running around willy-nilly doing things, but to put a plan in place to really help the city work with the housing group, work with the Land Bank ... MR. MCDANIEL: Land Bank. MR. CALLISON: The housing people and we have development grants ourselves with the community development group. They all need to work together on improving the stock of housing. I think what you have to ... you end up having to say is that we really need a rising tide to lift all, everybody in town. That's one of the reasons why we're so focused on new business coming in, new jobs. For instance, the bike guy. I shouldn't call him the bike guy. MR. MCDANIEL: The bike guy, sure. MR. CALLISON: The bike guy, yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: The world class bike guy. MR. CALLISON: The world class bike guy. MR. MCDANIEL: That's better. MR. CALLISON: Opportunity. There are jobs on the horizon and those are the kinds of things that we ... It's just all these things have to work together. We have the schools to train the kids, we have the industry for them to go to work for, the housing that brings that we are raising the standards for that eventually brings up the whole city. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: You really have to take a long term view of this whole thing. It's not happening overnight for sure. MR. MCDANIEL: Two things that come out of that that I want to ask you about. First, is the ... and you don't always ... Things don't always go the way you wish they did, kind of like the Canadian company, what was that? MR. CALLISON: CN ... C ... MR. MCDANIEL: CBMR. MR. CALLISON: CBMR. CVMR. MR. MCDANIEL: CVMR. MR. CALLISON: Yes. They are still interested. In fact ... MR. MCDANIEL: They were going to come here and build a big carbon facility, process facility or something like that. MR. CALLISON: Not carbon, but they were ... MR. MCDANIEL: Fiber, fiber. It was fiber. Some kind of fiber. MR. CALLISON: They have a lot of mineral contracts. They have things that they produce a lot of specialty minerals that get used in industry. They're still very interested in coming here. We don't know. We ask but ... I understand why, but as a member of city council, we're probably the last ones that anybody ever tells anything to. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. MR. CALLISON: We want to tell all of our fans how great we're doing. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. CALLISON: They're still on the hook. They're still interested in the community. MR. MCDANIEL: I know Ray Evans has been doing some work with the city to really pursue those kinds of opportunities, hasn't he? MR. CALLISON: Yes, he has. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that what he's doing? MR. CALLISON: He's mostly concerned with commercial businesses like the mall. He was instrumental in working with the developer in the mall and things like that. That seems to be his more ... and housing kind of thing is his area of expertise. The mall is just a huge, from our perspective, given that it's going to do well, it's going to be a huge success ... MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: To really help the city. MR. MCDANIEL: It'll take a few years to get everything in that needs to be there. It's going to be kind of like a ... I was driving there the other day with my son and we looked over and I said, "It looks like it's going to be a little mini Turkey Creek." MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: The way it's going to be set up. MR. CALLISON: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Kind of an open air retail spaces and things such as that. The other thing that I was going to ask you about is you talked about the school system, you talked about creating jobs, having opportunities ... having opportunities to train students for jobs both in the high school level and through Roane State. They're making a huge effort now to train a workforce. Not necessarily for four-year college people, but workforce for technical skills and things such as that. How do you see that affecting Oak Ridge and the future? MR. CALLISON: I think they're really very positive. Pellissippi and Roane State are working together very closely. I see them, they're always at ETEC. The president of Roane State has just become the president of this year’s ... He'll be the ...call it the president of ETEC. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. MR. CALLISON: They just put out a work plan for the ETEC, the things that they want to approach and all the things. There's like $14 billion dollars worth of projects potentially, potential projects on the horizon for Oak Ridge. At Oak Ridge National Lab, a new target for the Spallation Neutron Source. There are the buildings, the UPF [Uranium Processing Facility] at Y-12, $6 billion dollars by itself plus the cleanup work that's going out at ETTP [East Tennessee Technology Park] which people can see the end result of that. It's getting close to being done at ETTP and they'll move over to Y-12 next. From a ... I don't want to call it a spin perspective but I think things are just really, the stars are all aligning for us. We just have to keep going forward and pushing forward and getting these things done. MR. MCDANIEL: Speaking of the federal government and the city of Oak Ridge, there seems to be a little bit of contention, a contentious relationship lately. Talk a little bit about that. Of course, it's always been that way, but Oak Ridge is really relied on the federal government for historically, but what's the relationship now between ... Try not to spin it too much. MR. CALLISON: No, I'm not. I would say that the probably the biggest thing that has changed is when Gerald Boyd was the last head of ORO [Oak Ridge Operations], everything worked through him. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: When he moved on to the industry and things like that, what we ended up with, and I understand why each of the programs ... Why the Lab, why Y-12 and why ETTP all liked to work directly for the boss. We all want to work directly for the boss. That tends to be where we are currently. They've all working for assistant secretaries ... MR. MCDANIEL: In Washington. MR. CALLISON: In Washington, and they all have their own agendas and so we still have ORO. They're responsible for just the operation of the property. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. They don't have ... MR. CALLISON: The clout. MR. MCDANIEL: The clout that Gerald Boyd had when he was in that position. MR. CALLISON: Exactly. I think that's part of the issue and then, they're good stewards of the government's money, other people's money I guess. The taxes. So there's always some tension. We'd like them to give us millions of dollars ... MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: For being here and having all this land set aside for DOE [Department of Energy]. We're working hard with them. Probably the one thing right now that's the hardest thing is the water plant. Who's going to pay for it, how do we pay for it? Those kinds of things. MR. MCDANIEL: Because they use ... They use so much ... MR. CALLISON: They use so much water from it. MR. MCDANIEL: So much water. MR. CALLISON: Excuse me. MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. MR. CALLISON: Sorry. MR. MCDANIEL: That's all right. That's no problem. Yeah, they use so much water. MR. CALLISON: Half the water, yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, yeah. So anyway. When the city deals with them now, are they dealing with the folks in Washington or are they dealing with the local folks? MR. CALLISON: Primarily with the local folks. We do try to use sparingly our congressman. Congressman Fleischmann, he's a very good advocate for us and things like that. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket in terms of going after one single issue. We try to look across the spectrum of all the different things. We'd like them to do land transfers faster so we could get more of the land available to do commercial development and things like that. There are a lot of issues where we, as you well know, that we deal with DOE. Probably the most frustrating right now is just the water plant and getting an agreement on how do we go forward, what rate do we charge them, those kinds of things. Right now we're still working on our interim agreement that we've had in place for a little while. It's just people. Got to work with them and get it to work. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Is there a plan in place, a specific plan in place other than to create more jobs in Oak Ridge or is it just a bunch of different things being done at the same time. MR. CALLISON: Well, we do have ... It's a whole bunch of different things. I think that there is ... Mark Watson and the city is working with our advocates in the chamber of commerce. Chamber is primarily looking at retail, those kinds of things. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: Mark and his group are primarily looking at larger industries. We have, I wouldn't call it ... I think it's looking for new business which then implies that they will bring jobs. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: I think that is our focus. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: Again, they don't tell city council all this stuff, but my understanding is that we've had more inquiries in the last year than they could ever remember before. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? MR. CALLISON: That people are interested, we've gotten our name out. Parker Hardy and his group goes every year to Vegas to the big retail show in Las Vegas. We have a pretty much dedicated group that's trying out looking for industry, trying to bring them in and sell them on Oak Ridge. I think the timing is right because ETTP is really getting cleaned up and there's a lot of land out there that can be used for different kinds of businesses. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, but those would mostly be industrial ... MR. CALLISON: Industrial. MR. MCDANIEL: That type of things because it's going to be ... Is it going to be a brown field? MR. CALLISON: It depends on where you are. MR. MCDANIEL: Depends on where you are. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: The other big issue for us, it's infrastructure too. Out at ETTP and Horizon and Heritage Center (the big issue) is power. I know our Electric Department is looking at different ways to bring in large quantities of power. Even Lamont and his ... with his carbon fiber, it takes a lot of power to do some of that stuff. MR. MCDANIEL: They've done it before. They did it 70 years ago. MR. CALLISON: Absolutely. MR. MCDANIEL: They can certainly do it again I guess. MR. CALLISON: Yeah, yeah. Well, and then it's always balancing between the concern about the environment versus what we need for industry. Power lines sometime people say, "Well, we don't want power lines going back through our green space. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: You've got to get the power in and it doesn't make sense to put it underground. It's what we do. It's a constant trade off to try to make everybody happy as much as possible. MR. MCDANIEL: Oak Ridge is fairly, and I think traditionally and historically has been ... How shall I put this? It's had a lot of environmental activism. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that, other than what you just mentioned, do you find that to be a challenge? Is it something that is ... is that activism powerful enough to keep progress from happening? I guess progress is a relative word. It depends on how you use it. MR. CALLISON: Right. I just think it has to be balanced. You need people to be looking at both sides and I think that's what we have to do. We have to be able to have a sensible conversation with people and understand where they're coming from, understanding what are the trade-offs and things like that and find a place that we all can gain from. I think it's good that we have that, we have the environmental concerns because if you look at our history and the kinds of places that we have around the city, people needed to be concerned about it and clean it up. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: It's just finding that happy balance. I always think that's what our job is to try to find that happy balance and get people to work together and see the future. MR. MCDANIEL: There's been a lot of talk over the years of and this kind of goes back to the housing market, "Wouldn't it be great if everybody that worked in Oak Ridge lived in Oak Ridge. The way it used to be." Is that an unrealistic expectation? MR. CALLISON: Yep. It is. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Yeah. MR. CALLISON: I think we have to make Oak Ridge be the place that people want to live. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MR. CALLISON: You can't force people to live here. They did. As you said, probably not too long ago the companies that were running Y-12 and running all the other places, they could tell their managers where they're going to live. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: It's not that way anymore and so I think it's just critical for us to make ourselves the place that people want to live and see it. That's the other thing too. MR. MCDANIEL: I guess being kind of land locked with no ... Not being able to really expand geographically, that creates another problem other than the fact ... You can't go out and build nice new neighborhoods very much. MR. CALLISON: Well, we have a lot of land that we could be building new neighborhoods on. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLISON: We do. MR. MCDANIEL: What do you do with the other, the old housing stuff? MR. CALLISON: Well, that's the whole process. You've got to be able to change out, move. I don't want to call it “tear down.” That's not the right term. I think naturally that if you can create an environment that people want to live here, it creates the market for the housing, causes the builders to upgrade homes or knock them down and build new homes. I think that if you look at the ... like for instance the mall property and how far out we went with the zone that's going to look at. It actually, and I just ... Manhattan, of all the Manhattan apartments are up there. They've been there for a long time. MR. MCDANIEL: A long time. MR. CALLISON: If it became economically viable, then there could be something happening in that area. It could be very easily taken care of with zoning and things like that. The people that owned it decided that they could, for lack of a better term, make more money by changing out the apartments and going to something that potentially is a little more dense, or higher end. All kinds of things. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. MR. CALLISON: I see us having huge number of possibilities and just trying to focus in on our limited resources, on the ones that are going to be most successful. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Speaking of limited resources, there's a ... I don't know how much the city is involved with this, and I don't know what the city's ... Really, I don't know what the city's position is on this with the American Museum of Science and Energy is ... It has been on the chopping block for some years now because DOE doesn't want to perpetually ... MR. CALLISON: Pay for it. MR. MCDANIEL: Pay for it. MR. CALLISON: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: What do you see or has there been discussions with the city council or with the city manager or anything like that about AMSE [American Museum of Science and Energy]? MR. CALLISON: Yes. It's a constant discussion. I think the issue has been that the particular ... the facility today as it exists is not ... it doesn't have the right ... it doesn't fit what they really need. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: I think what they're constantly looking for, how can we do this differently, how can we tie it into the National Park Service and things like that. I think there's a constant conversation going on about that. We announced the other day that our builder who's rebuilding the mall also has taken an option on buying that property where AMSE is sitting there and, in particular, looking to develop the front half of that area first and then looking at some way to ... How can we provide the functions of AMSE but in a different location potentially or something like that is the thing that they're looking at right now. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, because they've been in that building since 1972. That's a long time since they moved from Jefferson. That building is no longer there. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: I remember going to that building and getting my radioactive dime when I was in elementary school. Anyway. All right. Let's see what else. There's a couple other things I wanted to ask you about. What can you see for Oak Ridge in let's say 10, 15 years from now? When you're about ready to retire from political life. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. I truly ... I think an absolutely vibrant downtown mall area that has apartments and ... I'm just talking from the plan. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: 230 units of apartments in the back. The hotel is going to be built. Something's going to happen. People have to have a place to go but if you can think of potentially townhouses or something like that going up where the Manhattan Place is. The whole Target is supposed to ... Not Target, I'm sorry. Kmart. There's a lot of interest in that facility. Right next door to Hobby Lobby, which is doing extremely well and we continue to become a magnet for all the communities around us. Kroger's has set records for the sales at their store. Just this momentum growing and becoming more of a magnet. I laugh because I say, "We compete with Turkey Creek." Well, people I talk to say, "Trust me. If we had a place to go, I would not go over to Turkey Creek." MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, well, it's just a big pain. MR. CALLISON: Well, yeah. It's two roads, I mean a road ... MR. MCDANIEL: A road, yeah. MR. CALLISON: I see just tremendous potential for this town. It's one of those things, I've always said that winning brings more winning. People build on it, they see ... People are very excited to see something happen to the mall after 20 years. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Of course, of course. MR. CALLISON: People are upbeat about things like that and I see that is just perpetuating our growth as the city and things like that, and filling out. Then builders will come in, we're hearing from builders that it's not bad doing work and it's not hard to do work in Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: Traditionally, historically, maybe it was a little more difficult to work in Oak Ridge. MR. CALLISON: Right, but when you see the markets improving and the retails improving and industries coming to town, then builders say, "Well, I can come in and knock down ..." I don't say this like taking people out of their homes. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: … “But I can clear an area and build new homes.” MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: “I can serve the population.” If you look out at the west end of town, and I always forget the name of it because it's changed but there's a huge amount of property out there where they could build and then people could live there and just move over into the Heritage Park or ETTP and work and things like that. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly. MR. CALLISON: I'm very excited about the future of Oak Ridge. It's not because I'm a politician. I just think that the things that I'm seeing and the excitement that people are feeling about things, are actually happening. It's really exciting. It's a good time to be here. MR. MCDANIEL: You mentioned earlier that you don't have any plans to leave any time soon. MR. CALLISON: Well, I got nine-year-old boys. I've figure I've got at least nine more years. MR. MCDANIEL: At least. MR. CALLISON: At least. MR. MCDANIEL: At least. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: At least. For sure. Is there anything that I've not asked you about that you'd like to talk about, either personally or professionally or as a member of Oak Ridge City Council? MR. CALLISON: I think it's for people to see the positive things that are happening in the city. I understand that there's been a lot of things that you can get people to start talking about, "Well, why don't we have Target on top of the hill? How did that get killed?" and all this kind of stuff. Well, it's water under the dam. At this point in time, what's happened has happened, and it's a great opportunity for us to move forward. I hope people get on board and that people can see that it will help them too. Given that we have some growth, we can raise our tax base. The number of people that are paying taxes can increase so that we all understand that our taxes should be lower. We'd love them to be lower. That comes with growth. I think you can grow out of so many issues that have existed in the past by having success in commercial and continue the success in our schools and everything else. I think it's just a very exciting time to be on the council, very exciting time to live in Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: One of the things that I didn't mention and I don't know that this has anything to do with the city or not but I think it's good for Oak Ridgers if they'll take advantage of it. If they're able to take advantage of it is that grant from TVA to, speaking of the housing stock, is to renovate. Spend up to $10,000 per home to make homes more energy efficient. MR. CALLISON: There's that and then there's also another grant that they're combining with that, that let's them go in and do things like upgrade the wiring and stuff. MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Wow. MR. CALLISON: The only issue that I know that they're having is that so many of our houses are gas. MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I'll tell you, I qualify for everything except I have gas heat. I could use $10,000 worth of renovation on this home. MR. CALLISON: Yep. MR. MCDANIEL: But because I have gas heat, that knocks me out. MR. CALLISON: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: They actually called me last week or a week or two ago and said that TVA has raised the ... MR. CALLISON: Level. Income level. MR. MCDANIEL: Income level. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: She said, "Will that help you?" I said, "Well it certainly would," I said, "But the bad thing about it is I still have gas heat." MR. CALLISON: We are talking ... MR. MCDANIEL: I said, "It might be worth disconnecting it for a year and you know." MR. CALLISON: They've talked to Oak Ridge Utility District about there are some places that may have gas service but not being used. They're places in the city. I think it is political I think, I'm sure. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Sure, sure. MR. CALLISON: One of the questions was, "If you're not serving those areas but there is gas available potentially, is there a way that we can say that there's no service?" MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. MR. CALLISON: That's essentially what would have to happen. It is a problem. One of the things in my Rotary Club, I'm in the Breakfast Rotary Club. We do a Christmas angels and Linda Brown from ... Linda Brown, used to be Linda Brown Reality, she does all that and it's a fabulous program. One of the things that I got to do, my family we bought bicycles for kids. These three girls wanted bicycles. We took them over and it was on the W Street and dropped them off and they had the biggest electric heater I've ever seen in my life. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MR. CALLISON: It was a portable electric heater. I swear the plug was about this big around. You look at it and you go, "This is the perfect place to do the upgrade." MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. MR. CALLISON: Now, it's landlord owned but I understand the landlords can compete for the grants. I just didn't understand. Those are the people that we really need to help. MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly, exactly. MR. CALLISON: If it was easy, anybody could do it, right? MR. MCDANIEL: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. MR. CALLISON: Anyway, I really enjoyed it. MR. MCDANIEL: That's a good example of some things that are happening in Oak Ridge, and that we are able to address some of the issues. MR. CALLISON: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: All right. Thank you so much for coming in ... MR. CALLISON: Thank you. I appreciate it. MR. MCDANIEL: And chatting and talking about the issues the way you see them here in our city. MR. CALLISON: It's all in the eye of the beholder, right? MR. MCDANIEL: That's exactly right. All right. Thank you very much.
MR. CALLISON: Thank you. MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. [End of Interview]